Ok. I tend to believe any reasonable business person recognizes stagnancy leads to inevitable death <although at the same time many reasonable business people also have an unhealthy relationship with tried & true systems & processes, mitigate risk taking to such an extreme level that change almost seems indiscernible and views any change as something that needs to be analyzed from every view imaginable before undertaking it>.

I thought about that when I scanned a fantastic article on WarontheRocks discussing the army strategy of the future. Within it was a phrase that caught my eye – “disciplined disobedience.”

It first and foremost reminded me that businesses can view stagnancy in a variety of ways in their attempt to “not change what works” while seeking “change what needs to be changed” <all of which simply means “something within your business is not dynamic and there are scraps of stagnancy slowing you down”>.

It secondly reminded me that back in august 2010 I wrote something called ‘discontinuity for successful company continuity’ in which I shared an organizational idea called “controlled autonomy” <others may call it a version of a self organized organization or a decentralized organization or a variety of ‘decentralized-like employee empowered’ terms> … and suggested that was the organization of the future.

—————————-

A continuous discontinuous organization?

Controlled autonomy.

Controlled in that there is a vision, a focus and a functional understanding of what is it we do well.

Autonomy in that outside the ‘control developers’ people can do different shit.

Controlled autonomy is certainly an organizational shift from the past.

But even IBM has looked at this concept.

A past IBM research report suggests that the best analogies for businesses in the future may no longer be the command structures of the military but the self-organizing networks found in nature: schools of fish, flocks of birds and swarms of insects.

Well.

I don’t know about the birds & bees thing but I do understand they are suggesting some decentralization (or autonomy at the employee level).

The struggle with this is that this agility I am discussing is a process where the leadership is not omnipotent.

And further struggle continues with autonomy (and the ensuing agility) as there will be enablers and blockers within the organization therefore the leadership must factor in internal organization limitations (and possibilities) when judging the best plan of action.

What that really means is that no matter how you slice it … organizations are ‘tense anxiety-driven’ structures.

Employees typically oppose new ideas because they perceive they are unworkable (and sometimes they are if the ivory tower doesn’t have their shit together) and bad for profits (or it appears to on the ground people they aren’t making as much money).

And yet we also know that employees always have a large stake in the future success of any organization. Some hesitancy is due to fear or laziness but it can also be due to good judgment.

This is where autonomy comes into play.

It’s not just about diverse views in planning (which obviously highlights opportunities and obstacles) but also some permission of diversity in on the ground decision making.

And autonomy in an organization helps address the truth that is there is a difference between ‘intended’ strategy at the corporate level and ‘realized’ strategy on the business level, i.e., what management wishes to occur, and what is in fact carried out.

That is also the dynamic portion of businesses that permits change to meet changing markets.

Sounds awful difficult to control? (or manage) Sure it is.

But that is why a leader should be paid the big bucks.

———————-

Uhm. I still believe that.

At the most simplistic level any business faces two basic demands — it must execute its current activities to survive today’s challenges and adapt those activities to survive tomorrow’s.

This means executing and adapting at exactly the same time. This also means, within your business, there is a constant competition for resources, money & time in order to meet executional demands and adaptation opportunities <therein lies a significant portion of the ‘tense-anxiety’ dynamic of a dynamic organization.

I am not making this up.

Peters and Waterman <In Search of Excellence> argued that organizations must simultaneously be “tight” in executing and “loose” in adapting. I believe they also pointed out that very few do both well.

I have had many discussions with many businesses trying to convince them that an organization can be very good at both executing and adaptingand how to be good at both.

It seems that many business leaders sometimes forget that the organization can sometimes forget they can actually be an organization from an aligned ‘doing’ perspective <because we put such an emphasis n vision and strategy>.

What I mean is that most good businesses have naturally incorporated a sense of autonomy and over time the organizational alignment aspects fade into a subconscious background space and individual departments and groups coalesce around the autonomous aspects <it gives them a sense of pride, empowerment & self-actualization as part of the whole>.

Everyone should note that while this is an incredibly powerful engine in a company it can become challenging with employee turnover <because there has to be some plan to assimilate new people into a subconsciously acting organization>.

Look. I believe, and vocally espouse, great alignment in an organization more often than not is actually “purposeful fragmentation.” This is the type of alignment which permits the parts of the organization <departments, divisions, etc.> to maintain some autonomy yet always be grounded in what is ultimately important to the organization.

Sure. I do believe there are things you want an organization to do fairly commonly and certainly can do if you ask the organization to swing into action. And I do believe it is imperative to get these things down and established as ‘rote behavior’ in the midst of an organizational shift/transformation. But organizations have a nasty habit of falling back on less-than-autonomy type leadership and thinking. This nasty habit occurs as we gain experience because our ‘rules & guidelines’ hierarchies fill up based on a larger collection of specific experiences and more feedback on what has and hasn’t worked.

Someone articulated the outcome of this as:

“our mental models grow into complex structures of categories, interlinked rules, and weightings. We become less likely to perceive experiences as totally new and instead try to relate them to previous ones, which we group into existing categories. As mental models become more complex over time, major rearrangements become more difficult.”

Basically, as an organization’s size and complexity increase its degrees of freedom & autonomy decrease. and while I just made a sweeping generalization I would point out something that Scott Page, University of Michigan, who studied why some organizations are complex and hierarchical while others are simple and flat concluded — organizations evolve in response to the problems they have to solve.

All of this leads me back to what the Army Chief of Staff said in the warontherocks article. Two thoughts for any business person who embraces the uncomfortable truth that stagnancy is the path to irrelevant death:

“If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

Consolidated bases and logistics hubs will be untenable, presenting lucrative targets for an enemy with precision firepower. He noted we must “untether ourselves from this umbilical cord of logistics and supply that American forces have enjoyed for a very lengthy period of time.” Army units will have to move, set up, move, and move again — “maybe every two, three, four hours just to survive.” Fixed sites of any kind will be lethal magnets for destruction by enemies who will have a rich diet of targeting information — especially since smart phones will be even more ubiquitous. As he bluntly stated, “If you’re stationary, you’ll die.”

Disobey Orders — Smartly

He called this “disciplined disobedience.” I believe this idea was floated by a past Army Chief of Staff back in the 1970’s but called “selective disobedience.” This suggests that disobeying orders can be justified to achieve the larger purpose of the mission.

[A] subordinate needs to understand that they have the freedom and they are empowered to disobey a specific order, a specified task, in order to accomplish a purpose. Now, that takes a lot of judgment … it can’t just be willy-nilly disobedience. This has got to be disciplined disobedience to achieve the higher purpose.

Milley added:

“disobedience, when done, must be done with trust and integrity, and you must be morally and ethically correct.”

A business competitive field has always been one of chaos and unpredictability <although we have always tried to communicate it as more static in SWOT analysis and crap like that>. And if you accept it is more chaotic and unpredictable it will become easier to understand why far too many organizations frequently lack reliable communications up and down the chain of command. As the Army recognizes, and businesses more often should, junior leaders may have to independently make quick decisions upon which battles may be decided and which may have strategic consequences.

In a controlled autonomy the leaders must become more comfortable with some ambiguity and accepting the fact that employees closer to the point of action/decision will be making unsupervised decisions to achieve the organization’s, and leader’s, intent. Simplistically, as the Army suggests is mission command — empowering leaders with the “why” of their task, but leaving the “how” to their imagination.

Well. Suffice it to say … while people like me love that thought & concept most business leaders are scared shitless of it. Frankly, most senior leaders <centralists by management nature> who seek to implement some autonomous aspects don’t set out to deceive anybody. In their heads they know that high degrees of involvement, participation, and autonomy are key elements in high organization performance. But in their hearts, they still crave orderliness, predictability, and control.

They get trapped in the wretched in-between because a central “plan” cannot dictate and bring order to a haphazard, chaotic, unpredictable, and rapidly changing business world – no matter how much we wish it would.

And. It gets more difficult.

With a continuing stress on “bottom line” or making margins as high as possible leaders fall into the financial analysis trap which encourages anything but autonomy.

Financial analysis can clearly show that consolidating and centralizing support services and functions saves money and increases efficiency <in huge PowerPoint graph slides in the conference room> therefore suggesting autonomy is less than efficient.

What doesn’t show up in these analysis are two things:

<1> consolidating & centralizing is most effective & efficient in servicing a static business (note: business is never static)

<2> the inherent alienation, helplessness, and lack of ability to connect with real time customer & market needs or organizational purpose that centralized bureaucracy often brings

I could argue for controlled autonomy for years. And I could begin with the simplest thought that efficiencies may save gobs of money but the processes to do so can be cost you the intangible people energy and passion engine within the organization <and then add in at least 5 additional powerful reasons you, as a business leader, need to suck it up and embrace some ambiguity>.

Controlled autonomy may not be the proper terminology <albeit it offers a more comfortable liminal space fr a lot of existing leadership> but I would encourage all business people to start using the Army as an example and start using “disciplined disobedience”as a management North Star.

While distributed leadership, or decentralized organizations, is crashing into the digital transformation discussion what is making me think the most is ‘freedom.’ Yes. At the core of both of these things is freedom. What do I mean? We can distribute decision-making, we can distribute data, but if, when distributed, people are not free to use than you either have not really distributed anything or you have not maximized your distribution (both are bad). I bring up ‘freedom’ because it is here that I find my struggle matches up with many people’s struggle: giving freedom and gaining freedom is scary. This matters because how you interpret and accept freedom is inextricably to the ultimate efficiency or effectiveness.

What really made me sit back & think about this was Niels Pflaeging/Silke Hermann’s new little handbook “OpenSpace Beta.” To me, at its core, it is about radical freedom. They may not say that nor any distributed leadership experts may not say that (they most typically discuss things thru ‘trust’), but it is all about freedom – giving & getting – and your attitude & beliefs with regard to.

I found myself debating with myself as I read the handbook.

I know “decentralized decision making within hierarchy” is an oxymoron. It is inherently impossible to decentralize in a hierarchy. You may distribute some decision making, but not decentralize & certainly not create a fully free, autonomous, organization. And, yet, I know that unfettered freedom is fraught with peril (and a significant # of people actually like a fairly well defined box in which to create & do.

I know my own behavior has had an uncomfortable relationship with giving, and gaining, freedom in self & managing others.

In my mind, effective ‘decentralization’ is most likely more like a matching service, i.e., “this autonomy matches this participant’s autonomy”rather than “freedom to do what you believe is right.”

That may sound like semantics, but it is important semantics.

Its almost like I am suggesting decentralization protocols so that people maximize the freedom they want – maybe call it “personalized distributed decisionmaking.”

By the way. This doesn’t suggest people cannot grow into their freedom, but rather most people used to a centralized hierarchy will be most successful in accepting freedom in phases. Ok. Maybe not phases, but rather stages of self learning (what am I capable of, what do I like, what am I comfortable with, what scare me, when & how I should seek some assistance). We cannot ignore that many people, even those who want this idea, will have to feel their way thru the maze of freedom.

Some people will argue analysis will help the autonomous links in relationships, but I disagree. Decentralization is hard, no metric will be able to capture this correctly. Therefore, rather than taking on a “if it cannot be measured, it cannot be improved”attitude, I will suggest success is dependent upon a large dose of “faith” in distributing freedom.

Now. This becomes an incredibly important discussion because recent research by Gary Hamel is showing exactly the opposite in the business world:

“Bureaucracy is growing not shrinking… the average respondent (of Hamel’s study) works in an organization that has more than 6 management layers. In large organizations front line employees are buried under 8 or more layers of management.” Joost Minnaar

This means less real freedom and more management oversight (no matter what anyone may say otherwise).

To me, this is a reaction to autonomy. Huh? Yeah. For every action there is a reaction. Organizations will inherently create more rules, protocols, institutional checkpoints (those can be layers) to balance out the freedom they give – freedom given, freedom corralled. It is foolish to ignore this. It is foolish to ignore the fact businesses like tidiness & freedom/autonomy feels very very untidy.

This “untidiness of autonomy” hit me as I read OpenSpace Beta because the organizational concept espouses the idea of gaining traction where the traction raises their hands and then leverage the opt-in people to create the change. I inherently love this idea and scares the hell out of me at the same time. It is an incredibly untidy idea. Businesses inherently like tidiness and evenness & this has an untidy organizational change aspect and inherently can create some ragged edges in the organization as some adopt and some do not.

So.

I asked Niels about it:

Me: “Does OpenSpace Beta espouse the idea of gaining traction where the traction raises its hand, and then leveraging opt-in?”

Niels: The answer is YES. Even though it sounds brutally simple putting it that way! 😉 If you look at it, we certainly assume, and I am sure that EVERYONE WANTS BETA. The desire is everywhere, but it is hard for people to believe that Beta is possible in their own organizations, and that everyone wants to get engaged in the transformation. I believe the main obstacle to transformation of organizations, today, is that it is hard to believe that “all others in my organization are Y people” and that all others “want the change and can be part of the change“. In short: It is hard to believe that transformation is possible at all, that change is fast & easy – when done the right way. So, in a way, one should assume that “the traction is there”, and then create the context for the traction to take hold. How that works is not so simple – and that is why we need an inviting, opt-in approach.

Therein lies the challenge in thinking about this untidiness.

Believing that freedom is as good for you as it is for someone else.

Believing that others will use freedom as well as you do.

Believing everyone deserves freedom.

Yeah. That sounds like it could take some soul searching .. and it should. Business, for decades & thru hierarchy, has always been built around selective freedoms – maybe ‘controlled freedom.’ That’s not full autonomy, that’s controlled autonomy (which is where my head was at 8 years ago when I wrote aboutControlled Autonomy ). I now rethink that thinking. Maybe it is simply my evolution of belief in freedom and people. Maybe I needed distributed leadership people to help me evolve in my thinking.

Regardless.

Stop signs.

This is where I come to stop signs. Even Freedom needs some stop signs. Roads are built so people can make their own choices where and when to go somewhere. But even in the most rural areas you will find a stop sign in the middle of nowhere. It’s not set up to curb your freedom, but rather to put a check & balance on your freedom.

I think businesses need stop signs, not layers in a hierarchy. OpenSpace Beta offers principles (which I 100% advocate), but I also believe distributed leadership & autonomy needs stop signs. I would offer some but I tend to believe each organization, each management team, each self-organized team, needs to design stop signs for their own freedom organizational map. Does this mean I am chickening out by no offering some solutions? Maybe. Maybe I am not ready to build the map & stop signs myself. Maybe I need to evolve even more before not only fully accepting OpenSpace but maybe it’s my more pragmatic belief that stop signs erected can be stop signs pulled down and that as each company erects their freedom infrastructure part of the process is, well, looking at their stop signs.

In conclusion.

I encourage everyone to at least think about distributed leadership. OpenSpace, to me, is radical distributed decision making and radical freedom. But, returning to how I opened this piece, it is most likely the most radical way to maximize digital transformation AND your organization. And in that sentence one sees the true rewards (even if scared of giving radical freedom).

Choose wisely. But always remember freedom is scary – giving it & having it – and dealing with that fear is the path to success.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
―

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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“The problem today is not lack of proper resources, but lack of proper distribution.”―

Mahatma Gandhi

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We gussy up organizational discussions with teams, networks, communities, but, at the core of every business organization is “distribution” — distribution of people, resources, ideas, skills, talent, energy, time, etc.

Unfortunately, hierarchy isn’t particularly conducive to effective, let alone efficient, distribution of any of these things. Most organizations don’t ‘distribute’ these things, they allocate them. The organic distribution of anything is an anathema to a business.

That said.

Here’s what I’m thinking.

Can technology, specifically algorithms, instead of forcing team collaboration (or ‘network teams’) extract skills/talents so friction is decreased and potential (company and individual) be optimized?

First. Extracting is a derivative of cross functional.

Cross functional teams is not a new idea. Toffler called it “poly malleable” organizations in 1970.

The issue is the idea is excellent in concept, a bitch in practice. Business has become contortion artists in applying “collaboration” in organizations (kind of their answer to cross functional and malleable).

Personally, when individuals interact in groups, I do not believe long-term commitment is necessary to build a real team, therefore, extracting talents can be situational and be quite effective.

“Collaboration is a cultural construct, but also a coordinative one.”

Mike Walsh

However. Just as collaboration needs to be consciously coordinated, so would extracting talents & skills. My thought is rather than have some person (who may, or may not be, effective at assessing submerged, non obvious, skills & talents) coordinate, why not have algorithms monitor activity & behavior and pluck out submerged potential as needed?

Second. Technology as a force for positive ‘human’ progress.

The pace of technological progress is accelerating, bringing significant opportunities to create value providing opportunities to reinvent the way we live, work, and organize.

Far too often, when speaking of people, we speak of this acceleration in bad terms – loss of focus, distraction, non productivity – while, with organizations/business we tend to speak of it in glowing terms – faster revenue growth, improve profit margins & innovation. There is no reason technology cannot accelerate people potential if not optimize an organization by having technology augment people.

Harnessing algorithmic capabilities, computing capacity and data should enable human competencies (beyond their obvious role) and a new generation of system level innovation & productivity.

Third. People are not wholes, but rather a sum of parts.

Sum of parts? Let’s call it ‘the potential within Fragmentary interests’. I was tempted to discuss this as “distribution revolution of interest and knowledge.” It’s a deeper dimension to Drucker’s knowledge worker in that each knowledge worker contains fragments of knowledge – some fragments bigger, and more well developed than others, but fragments. Therefore potential doesn’t reside in optimizing one skill or fragment of knowledge but rather optimizing the fragmented interests residing in each individual.

—–

“The key to individual parts coming together to create an emergent whole is coordination, and that means a sharing of information between parts in the system.”

Gideon Rosenblatt

—–

Now. interestingly the technology exists (in some form) and it called ‘Digital twin’.

Therefore we would be seeking to optimize our digital twin. I will note this thought may also be a derivative of ‘semantic web’ but I am focused on algorithms with this idea.

fourth. Meaningfulness distribution

I hesitate to suggest distributing meaningfulness (it sounds to productivity purposeful) but at the core of this thought is what I stated in Distribution Revolution that all transactions are dependent upon distribution. And while it may sound harsh a business makes transactions with its employees – one of which is quite possibly “I will give you opportunities to optimize your potential & you will find meaningfulness in the process.”

Regardless. Transaction aside, is there a way to better enable meaning in traditional organizations – which tends to distance people from any meaning in work.

Meaning. No one defines meaning better than Alain de Botton (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work): “meaning is simply ‘making someone or something better.’” it is all about contributing to helping in some way (in small, grande or venti dimension).

I would argue that when humans are at the center of the molecule of all business activity, all connections gain value (even with digital & work) and the person gains intrinsic self-value because, well, everything augments them & their potential. That is scaling potential & meaningfulness.

“Your business is only as strong as your least scalable component.”

Mike Walsh

(part 1). I say that because we often say powerful forces are changing the business world but we rarely speak about how the powerful forces of people within an organization can radically change the business itself. Because of connectedness the loci of productivity and dynamism resides in movements in people, information and idea within a company. This is like a value chain which evolves based on the context of the need which reshapes to amplify the potential & knowledge of the team. Using algorithms thru the entire organization focuses skills, talents and people based on the situation at hand. These forces may morph in some unexpected ways and combining ideas & skills to create even greater impacts than we expected. And while we may discuss ‘greater impact’ in terms of productivity & return, the largest impact will be found in meaningfulness.

Think about it this way – company value chains become more knowledge-intensive and reliant on multi-skill labor.

Look.

(part 2). I think we are all beginning to realize we are all contributing to the blurring of life and work. Realizing that distractions and attention isn’t what is around us about what is within us.

At the same time realizing that festina lente matters. Not suggesting this is easy and we will not get it right but the more we practice it, the more an algorithm does it, the better we will all get at it.

But do we quit at the first failure?

People are rediscovering they matter in a business system that has talked about how people matter, but has actually done everything it can to squeeze out natural untidiness and compel conformity under the guise of efficiency. Yeah. people have always grumbled about this but hierarchy has naturally sucked the life out of believing real change, and empowerment, can occur. Now. as a recent article just stated “hierarchy is just a shape.” In general, I agree. But it does ignore that organization, construct, in and of itself, encourages stasis. But what if algorithms stimulated activity from within and discouraged stasis? That is my question.

With the concept outlined, let me highlight would I would see as four potential positive consequences:

Consequence 1: individual potential

Individual potential is always a tricky thing. Many times it is trial & error in an environment in which ‘stepping out of your specific responsibility zone’ is rarely encouraged and often high risk. This is unfortunate because if a system existed in which secondary, tertiary and even quaternary talent could be not only utilized but even exercised to become stronger, all individual skills improve.

Introverts tend to be hesitant to offer and extroverts tend to offer on the wrong things.

If an algorithm could tap into the potential mines of talent that exited on an ad hoc basis then every individual’s potential gets tapped. If that happens their productivity (mental or output) gets maximized.

Consequence 2: individual meaning

Here is the weird thing. Even though I am speaking of algorithms I am also speaking of community. Introverts or extroverts. Wallflowers or the bombastic. Getting everyone engaged is tricky. Yet. Everyone wants to be part of a community and everyone finds happiness part of a tribe/community. It is the getting in and getting engaged which is a very individual type decision. Work is no different. In fact. I could argue that work is not defined by some milestone attained or some project completion but rather “community is about a series of small choices and everyday actions.” Within those small interactions will be found that larger individual meaning.

Look.

Everyone wants to contribute. Everyone wants to do something to benefit others (“what I do has value to others”). Everyone wants to do both using whatever (all) skills available. Simplistically, if a business can trigger individual contribution it will enhance individual meaning.

Consequence 3: organizational potential

Strip away culture, shareholder value or whatever metric you want to discuss, business is dependent upon maximizing its resources. Think about it from a health perspective. If employees show up every day (no sick days), healthy and happy (health & happiness or linked), you maximize productivity on 2 dimensions – time productivity and individual responsibility productivity. Therefore, if you expand productivity beyond an individual’s responsibility and seek to tap into additional skills/abilities beyond their own specific responsibility you have the opportunity to expand organizational productivity in another dimension. Its possibly a different version of collaborative productivity. This one is collaboration not of people but of talent/ability fragments (via people). Its coalescing type collaboration. If you look at ability as resources it is possible an algorithm maximizes all organizational resources.

Consequence 4: organizational hiring

Assume consequence 1 thru 3 is true. You would no longer hire off a specific role but rather with an eye toward what combination of primary, secondary, tertiary & quaternary skills the leaving person has subtracted or, conversely, gaps the organization needs to fill if a role opens up.

Hire not for an individual role but rather organizational contribution made up of multiple roles.

Conclusion.

Oddly, my greatest defense of using algorithms to enhance organization potential may be found in the objective, the desired outcome, rather than in its more dubious companion – the algorithm itself.

The outcome?

As Don Cornelius said, ‘It is always a pleasure to find something that matters.’

What if algorithms helped find out what matters to people (skills) and optimized them?

What if all people were optimized (or, simply more & better utilized)?

What if all people skills were activated in a business?

The answers are obvious. More productivity. More individual meaning. And, arguably, more happy people and business.

Here is what I know.

Creativity is always what gives business, & brands, traction in the marketplace and is what insures businesses progress. If a business can maximize its creativity, it will always progress. Progress, rather than growth, should always be the objective a business.

Notice that nowhere in that paragraph did I mention meaningfulness, productivity, technology or purpose. I didn’t have to because if algorithms can tap into submerged skills people, and the organization, will inevitably be more creative in thinking & in solutions – which equals progress. And, bottom line, any algorithm that can do that is worth its weight in gold.

“We’re in a time of rapidly expanding insights about human motivation and connection, but meanwhile our companies continue to be run with a perspective on human psychology and sociology circa 1970.”

Stowe Boyd

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My quick response to the “No Boss, no Thanks” piece. I believe there is some misguided thinking (central authority is necessary, buck stops somewhere dependent upon one person, democratic decision making is inefficient/slow), but it was this particular part that galled me:

“Third, while technological miracles such as the internet, cheap and reliable wireless communication, Moore’s law, miniaturisation and information markets have induced sweeping changes in manufacturing, retail, transportation and communication, the laws of economics are still the laws of economics. And human nature hasn’t changed. The basic problem of management and business – how to assemble, organise and motivate groups of people and resources to produce goods and services that consumers want – is still the same. Since the industrial revolution, entrepreneurs have been organising extremely complex activities in firms that are neither completely centralised nor completely flat. Imagine the complexity involved in operating a national railroad, a steel mill or an automobile assembly plant in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These were all ‘knowledge-based activities’ and were conducted in teams organised in various structures. Are things so different today?”

First.

Yes. Things are ‘so different’. The uthors have completely missed what is the same and what is different about today’s business. I would suggest they read my piece, Distribution Revolution, on what I believe is functionally the same and it also outlines what I believe is different.

Second.

I would highly recommend the authors pick up a copy of Toffler Future Shock, Third Wave and even Powershift, if they have the time, because they would find the answer to “are things so different today?” in books written in 1970 & 1980 if they cared to look. In fact. Part of my whole aggravation with this article is I feel like we have been debating the same ideas Toffler offered us since 1970.

Anyway.

If you ignore everything else I write, pay attention to this. Maximizing people’s potential doesn’t mean doing away with managers; it just means you maximize the potential of people AS managers. I am not naïve enough to believe we will do away with titles and experience based ‘management’. But. People are managers and managers are people. Period.

Anyway.

Let me use some Toffler to point out where the authors of the article went wrong.

context: accelerated world

Solving business challenges can be complicated, but business itself is complex (& always has been). Business people cannot afford to confuse complicated and complex. Now. What technology did is accelerate the complexity. The business atoms were placed into a supercollider. In fact, it accelerated business dynamics beyond the structure of a hierarchy or even centralized “buck stops somewhere” managers. That said. I think we confuse speed and acceleration all the time to the detriment of organizational design and behavior. Organizational design almost seems to inherently have a desire to decelerate to permit some sense of “its okay, you can feel comfortable with the speed of business” where I think we would be better off addressing the larger issue Toffler outlined: overstimulation. Acceleration tests our attention, cognitive skills and ability to discern what is important and what is not – which is actually a ‘speed’ versus velocity discussion. The article, by suggesting the basic business world is the same, ignores that, in a grander context, it is not. In fact, the article is incredibly misguided because it would appear to encourage insular cocooning rather than suggesting the challenge is to fully engage & manage overstimulation. I am not suggesting acceleration & overstimulation is not an issue, but I will suggest it is a reality and hierarchies (centralizing overstimulation) is not the way to increase the likelihood of business success. If I were to choose one aspect I wish organizational psychology would address, this is it.

Which leads me to connectedness.

everything is connected with everything

When I read simplistic tripe like “The basic problem of management and business – how to assemble, organise and motivate groups of people and resources to produce goods and services that consumers want” I can understand how hierarchies have been so resilient to a better way of doing things. In the past it was arranging lego blocks, now it is arranging molecules. Toffler discussed this in a variety of ways, but the most interesting was “porous organizations” in which teams assembled, and reassembled, in order to meet specific challenges. He outlined this in 1970. Nowhere in that concept did he discuss no bosses, but he did suggest in 1990 (Powershift) that the biggest challenge to this idea would be power. The new business normal faces two dynamics: power & interconnectedness. Needless to say, they are connected.

Which leads me to connecting.

the world as a merry go round

We seem to ‘design’ organizations on the playground then demand it to jump on the merry go round. Or, worse, leave it on the playground and suggest business is about plucking opportunities as they spin ‘round the merry go round. The best organizations will jump on the merry go round with the resources they have on hand and meet the demands of the business. The truth is the centrifugal force of the accelerated merry go round demands different configurations at different times. This will demand a variety of ‘bosses’ (albeit I dislike that word). Management is contextual. Unless you happen to have a Swiss army knife person (they exist but are fewer than most businesses have) this means everyone will lead & manage at some point. If the authors don’t understand this I fear they don’t understand today’s business world.

Which leads me to untidiness.

discomfort with untidiness

Businesses inherently love tidiness and hate untidiness. They associate predictability & certainty with being tidy and inefficiency & failures/mistakes with untidiness. Unfortunately, for business, mediocrity (or even slippery slope to irrelevance) resides in tidiness and spectacular success resides in untidiness.

While we like to think of organizations as a ship sailing into a tumultuous sea it is actually a fleet of smaller ships being pushed & shoved by tides and waves through storm & calm all trying to go in one direction together <without crashing into each other>. Each smaller ship has a captain and a crew <often skilled in managing that particular ship if needed>.

The ‘No Boss’ authors seem to associate ‘building a dynamic organization’ or even ‘motivating employees’ by inevitably suggesting one big ship making progress in some direction (although they give a head nod to a matrix organization). If you don’t like that metaphor just accept this: the “No Boss” authors seek tidiness. They are wrong.

I say all that because you invariably need to grow your business unevenly. Yup. Sorry. A business isn’t, probably shouldn’t be and most likely cannot be <and be successful> ‘even.’ Or smooth. Or without any ragged edges. It needs to be grown unevenly <which is actually a natural growth rather than some manufactured growth>.

“Sureness will always elude you.

The detective will always circle around what he wants, never seeing it whole. We do not go on despite this. We go on because of it.”

—–

Claire DeWitt

Which leads me to freedom.

discomfort with freedom

Business, for decades & thru hierarchy, has always been built around selective freedoms – maybe ‘controlled freedom.’ Business people, in general, are much more comfortable building stop signs than they are highways. Toffler spent almost an entire book outlining how technology will create a freedom ‘shock’ (Future Shock) and an entire book on the shock to the power structures (Powershift).

“No Boss” reflects a fear of freedom & loss of power. Period.

Which leads me to belief.

belief.

Unfettered freedom CAN lead to chaos. So we come up with a number of behavioral & motivational tricks to attach to versions & steps to implement aspects of distributed leadership mostly because we ignore what we know about individual behavior and we have a healthy skepticism toward managers & management in general.

Gamification, carrots & sticks, incentives, milestones are all derivatives of hierarchy thinking trying to adapt to a relentlessly uncertain world. They are attempts to build in some certainty. Yet. Behaviorally we know the most powerful motivation has nothing to do with ‘defeating’ a system/objective/goal, but rather it’s about ‘belief.’ Defeating is someone wins, someone loses. Belief is like hope. It draws people toward it.

That said. It’s a twofold belief challenge.

Business owners, managers as such, need to believe in people. They need to believe if given the opportunity to make choices, do the right things, the arc of people behavior (driven by intentions) will bend toward productivity & profitability. Note. This means business community needs to embrace a lack of output smoothness (a perception & reality challenge in & of itself).

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“I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.”

The Catcher in the Rye

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As a corollary. People need to believe in people (themselves). While we may innately know we can make decisions, assume responsibility & do the right things, the business world has not encouraged people to think that way. In fact. It has often penalized us for thinking that way. Many people almost don’t believe they should have responsibility or that they will not benefit by doing the right things. If we can align belief, than construct, as it currently exists, falls apart naturally (as not conducive to the belief) & people will inherently access their potential because barriers to believing they have that potential are stripped away.

Yes. Some of the ‘tricks’ may be useful but looking at the gobs of absurd articles & books with regard to organizational psychology it appears we have missed they are all means to an end and maybe we should seek to identify the end and encourage managers and people to believe in the power of belief.

I ended with Belief because at the core of “No Boss” is a belief that control, in some dimension, is necessary. I wrote in my “Purpose of Business is to benefit People” piece that this is a reflection of not believing in people. I don’t blame the authors here because, well, there are a shitload of business thought leaders who not only do not believe in people but don’t believe “belief” is enough to guide people.

In the end.

The “No Boss” article is exactly what I hear from 50somethings holding onto the existing business construct with ragged claws.

Self-governing organizations are nothing new, even the Greeks were big fans, and Toffler began the vague outlines of how technology would widen the cracks in what we already knew – hierarchies were standardization models and people, and business, tend to thrive when non standardized. All that said. “No Boss, No Thanks” is tripe. Business drivel. Stowe Boyd called it “misunderstanding the nature of management” ; I call it just another example of fear of freedom couched in some poisoned fortune cookie wisdom. It ignores the most basic principles laid out in Toffler’s Future Shock & Third Wave that business normal was being shaken like an etch a sketch. And, in particular, it ignores Toffler’s third book, Powershift, by thinking power will always reside within some aspect of centralization & centralized thinking. It will not. They confuse centralized thinking with coalesced thinking. Centralized is inside out and coalesced is outside in where it is a reflection of, as Stowe suggests, ‘everyone is management.’

I’m certainly not as smart & insightful as Alvin Toffler, or Stowe Boyd, but even I know this “No Boss” article reflects not only a misunderstanding of distributed leadership but, more concerning, a misunderstanding of ‘business normal’ as it exists today.

Postscript:

I encourage everyone to revisit the Toffler trilogy. He shares a number of interesting thoughts:

The Electronic Cottage: where remote work force becomes integral part of organizations

“Making a product is just an activity, making a profit on a product is the achievement.”

―

Amit Kalantri

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This is about distribution, therefore, it’s about technology, the internet & the transfer of goods & services.

Everything is about distribution. Everything.

Ideas.

Thoughts.

Attitudes.

Things.

Products.

Services.

Monies.

Material.

Data.

Information.

Think of each of these things as containers – containers to be shipped from one place to another. This is different than transactions. Transactions are the outcomes of distribution, i.e., I cannot make a transaction unless it can be distributed.

Now. While anyone can use this new Distribution Revolution world we live in you have to earn the income, revenue & profits, they don’t just come to you, i.e., simply accessing the construct doesn’t mean you will benefit from it. I believe that point is why much of the business world is struggling with what exactly technology is and whether it truly has offered any increased economic productivity. It gets discussed as “just another channel” or a social amplification tool or an efficiency creator or, well, the laundry list of labeling is massive. To me it would make much ore sense if we simply thought of it as a distribution infrastructure change from which people should start thinking about the repercussions to people, organizations & businesses.

Given this view, one would note the internet changed the world in a couple of ways that often don’t get discussed:

Until the internet came along “everything is connected with everything” was more of a philosophical concept with strings of truth. Now, with the internet, it is truth which we need to conceptually, get a philosophical grip on it.

Until the internet came along everything was physically distributed now many things can be virtually distributed.

Within this context of these two things, retail discussions, data distribution & digital transformations, are simply smaller battles within the larger Distribution Revolution. We discuss companies as disruptors or legacy businesses all the while neglecting the fact business is always about transactions of value & distribution enables the value items to exchange hands. Business is ultimately about transactions of value, and, distribution is all about enabling the value items (goods & services & payment/$) to change hands as efficiently to as many markets as possible.

The container revolution started by giving businesses a way to distribute existing products faster and cheaper. Over time it allowed business to make and distribute new products and develop new business models. Containerization not only made shipping cheaper & faster it also completely changed the whole structure & mindset of distribution. In 1956 it cost $5.83 a ton to load loose cargo onto a ship in the United States – today it costs around 16 cents a ton (36x less expensive).

The new container revolution:

The internet is doing exactly the same thing. It gives people an alternative way to distribute existing products (physical and nonphysical) and enable businesses to create and distribute new products and develop new business models.

The Container revolution brought trade to previously out of the way places which before had been too costly to distribute. Similarly the internet has made it possible to not only distribute products & services but actual work (outsourcing). The internet can distribute in a variety of ways – physical logistics as well as digitally. This creates an entirely new industry for entrepreneurs to develop products & services which can be distributed anywhere at any time.

Think value on the move.

The essence of distribution is enabling value transactions to happen as cheaply and efficiently as possible beyond simply moving value from here to there, from seller to buyer, the internet actually provides opportunity to add value to the distribution process itself.

FYI. This can also be physical non internet products & services. For example, FedEx/UPS permits you to track your package via the internet. A logistics supplier who distributes nothing they actually create adds value to its own service simply thru distribution transparency.

All that said.

Digital is just a tactic within the revolution. Internet is the enabler of the revolution

What this distribution revolution has done is attack distribution in a variety of ways:

Digitally unbundling value.

If distribution is value on the move it also means value can be unbundled (which has potential positives AND negatives).

Simplistically value, in the past, was created in a stacked layered way. Value was built layer by layer so that when assessed the value was seamlessly embedded in the total. The inherent strength of this methodology was value was constructed like a building in which parts were dependent o other parts.

In the new distribution revolution, the value is unbundled in a more linear way so that the individual parts can be maximized for its singular value. On a continuum both efficiency (time & investment) and effectiveness (ability to enhance value) can be manipulated on an ongoing basis, therefore, the value components can be constantly adapted to maximize the total value.

Value gets driven up higher, in totality, by maximizing the individual parts with the highest value (this can be contextually different based on unique buying experiences). Productivity gets enhanced by more effective focus on things of highest value.

Innovation opportunities are identified as discrete parts which can be pursued with the intent to either enhance structural (overall) value creation or intent to pursue a new transactional value creation opportunity (a ‘part’ of the value creation uncovers a new opportunity to produce something new)

Localized relevance/personalization.

Local, or localized, connectiveness is a powerful aspect of providing value to distribution. People get absorbed, and sometimes overwhelmed, by the global scope of the distribution and localizing is an easy way to make it a little less overwhelming and more, well, personalized. Which leads me to personalization. To be recognized and acknowledged as a unique individual, or a distinct one, within a huge global distribution model, triggers one of the most basic human needs (recognition as an individual). Conversely, this is the underlying belief that while being acknowledged as an individual in a huge distribution world of anonymous impersonal interactions even a little nod to who you are, your identity, your specific needs, elevates basic distribution to personalized.

I would argue this is as far as you need to go (beyond maybe “you bought this so you may be interested in his” type personalization). The latter is acknowledgment you have had a relationship with that distribution but doesn’t overstep any ‘creepy’ boundaries.

Productivity:

We often conflate personalization with customization. Personalization, in general, creates a level of value to the functional & brand value. The productivity opportunity resides in the customization halo of personalization. In other words productivity can be enhanced if the productivity doesn’t simply ”chase” personalization but rather uses the personalization to assess either additional products or innovations which offer complementary products (which you can sell more of at a higher price).

How does digital transformation fit in?

Digital transformation is a means to an end – an infrastructure decision. It should be viewed as “how can I distribute what needs to be distributed to either enable structural value creation (of what exists) or how it can create new value creation toward corporate vision.”

The value creation insures it meets business objectives and corporate culture (because, remember, digital transformation is dependent upon not mastery or implementation but rather culture – culture at scale means digital simply scales with culture).

In other words, unless you decide what you want to distribute and to whom and when, you cannot effectively implement digital transformation.

Structural productivity (cross selling of more products at a higher price – or higher profit margin)

Where does the revolution go? New business models using New old products & services

We need to stop talking about Amazon and retail industry and focus on “how can this new distribution revolution be leveraged to meet our business objective (and what business do I want to create in which the objective can be met thru this distribution revolution>? There are few capacity issues/limitations associated with this distribution revolution so if the distribution helps you meet a viable business objective you know live in a ubiquitous world.

What I mean by this is there is an entire world of existing products & services which can become a new product or service simply by viewing it thru a distribution revolution lens.

Airbnb is simply a hostel-like concept enabled by tech

Uber was the eastern european transportation model but enabled by tech

Old ideas brought to life in a new way as information, value and transactions are exchanged.

Productivity:

There is nothing more profitable than selling more of something you already have and know how to produce efficiently. Theoretically businesses should be able to assess stagnant or dormant brands/products and evaluate whether a new way of distribution would reinvigorate sales & engagement.

Lastly.

Not the customer Revolution, organizational revolution

I would encourage everyone to think of this Distribution revolution as having an organizational consequence (which will inherently affect customers but it is the deliverer of customer products/service which is impacted most). I would argue this is where the greatest productivity increases will appear.

The main reason we have not seen the expected economic results predicted with technology is lack of alignment between organizational design and technology benefits. One of the largest benefits of an information distribution revolution is the ‘knowledge worker’ (as defined by Alvin Toffler) can now have all the information necessary to make decisions wherever they sit with whatever title they may, or may not, have.

This is where the distribution revolution is easing its way into a distributed decision making & leadership business model. Distributed decision making inherently has economic benefits and increases productivity. The main proof point for this is “The Added Value of Buurtzorg Relative to Other Providers of Home Care: A Quantitative Analysis of Home Care in the Netherlands” (KPMG: Jan 2015).

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Buurtzorg appears to transcend the usual trade-offs in health and social care: it is cost efficient and yet the ratio of nurses to clients is purposely kept low in the interest of care continuity; it generates a healthy surplus even though it employs a significantly larger than average number of highly-qualified staff remunerated at a higher than average level; it achieves higher than average employee productivity figures without centralised systems of employee control; it achieves higher than average quality of care at a cost level that is below the industry average.

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Now. This organizational design actually increases in productivity if more information, and relevant information, is distributed to employees.

This leads me to note simply removing hierarchy isn’t enough. Hierarchy has conditioned the everyday employee to not assume risk and middle management to be, well, anal. In addition current measurement models restrict decision making rather than enhance freedom necessary to make the best decisions at any given point in time. Frankly, most of us are conditioned to be passive and compliant. Successful self-managing companies have very clear structures but, culturally, are constructed with more of a belief in people taking responsibility & being accountable. Applying the Distribution revolution with a distributed decision making organizational model demands a mindset, leadership, culture and the human skills necessary to facilitate a much deeper level of productivity.

I would argue that is because there has not been an alignment of business & how the internet distributes information, ideas, knowledge & things to date. Some businesses have utilized aspects of technology and distribution opportunities to make some successful economic forays into the marketplace. But I struggle to find a business that has aligned all aspects to maximize economic productivity, enhance value and, well, sell more at the highest price possible.

Conclusion.

Distribution is inherently about the transfer of goods & services. I have simply expanded the definition of ‘goods & services’ based on technology. I believe it is helpful to look at technology as a Distribution Revolution because, as I have been reminded over & over again, technology should be a means to increased economic productivity & enhanced value creation.

When viewed under that microscope it becomes more obvious there is a lack of alignment to best utilize the distribution of goods & services. We will not reap the larger economic benefits until we stop viewing technology as, well, technology and begin viewing it simply as a distribution model from which we align all phases in the distribution from creation to implementation.

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Thanks to Joost Minnaar (Corporate Rebels) and Wiemer Snijders for some valuable input as well as an older J. Walter Thompson white paper on technology.

the bigger the world economy, the more powerful will be the smaller players. This is because they are more flexible, faster and more economical – not burdened by layers of bureaucracy. Computers and telecommunications, now affordable to small companies, allow them to compete globally, and deregulation and globalization of financial markets gives them access to capital. Computer-driven technology also makes it possible to produce small runs of customized “higher value-added” products aimed at niche markets. Products produced “just in time” save money on inventory, and they can be quickly improved to compete with rapidly changing technology and tastes. Big companies will break up into confederations of small, entrepreneurial units. Small interacting firms will form themselves into temporary mosaics to be more adaptive and productive.

Alvin Toffler

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In June 2013 I wrote an incredibly long piece called “inside out leadership” which shared a number of thoughts about the Future of Work. My belief was that after a misguided unhealthy focus on “the customer is king/queen” businesses would refocus their efforts on their “inside” <values, mission, culture, beliefs> in order to not only engage with right customers but also to create their value.

This portion, reprised, focuses on autonomy, distributed leadership and what I was calling ‘agile companies’ back in 2013.

Leadership in the future will be defined by the inside aspect of their businesses not just in producing things but rather knowledge capital, the values surrounding that knowledge application which create the character/personality value, and how it is all managed. Ah. Managed. Maybe better said getting an organization to collectively think in a common direction so that the individuals can be empowered to produce, think & do effectively.

This means organizational leadership will be defined by the ability to not respond to the consumer but rather respond, and adapt, to the organizational inputs & needs <boy, there is a paradigm shift>.

Oddly, this means organizational “power”, in general, will depend on taking advantage of the inevitable cracks in the process created by speed <agility> — not seamless surges forward.

To be clear. Agility will create cracks. The cracks created by the events that were not pre-programmed or foreseen.

I imagine this means true leadership partially depends partially on chance <finding the opportunities to lead within the moment> and managing human behavior in a desired fashion. This doesn’t mean everything is accidental. Not everything is random. In fact power is found within predictability as well as randomness. Organizational Power implies combining chance, necessity, continuity, chaos and order.

To me this means the new inside out leaders will have more of an opportunity to create the necessary attitudinal shift in business world than in recent years. Smaller organizations are easier to create attitudinal and behavioral direction than larger organizations which means creating lots of smaller pieces and parts coalescing in a common direction can affect a larger cultural shift in larger organizations. Conceptually, these different smaller business “teams” will shift traditional power away from manager-bureaucrats forcing the creation of a new type of leader.

That said. I believe organizational morality <or value beyond profit> will become the leadership cornerstone within an organization. While morality and virtue are developed over time <via repeated decisions to choose what is right and to forego what is wrong> which typically means there is no quick fix to any organizational morality problems … lots of smaller pieces can be redirected in the here and now.

Today’s’ inside out leader faces a variety of challenges. I will speak to what I consider the two biggest:

– Embracing fragmented knowledge while empowering it through organizational ‘tribes’

There are two portions to this challenge – contradictory but compatible.

Individualism empowered by access to knowledge and organizational tribes embedded within organizations.

First.

Tribes. I didn’t coin this term and in fact Toffler may have used it in 1990 <Godin certainly has>. I have mixed feeling with the term. It exhibits a stronger cultural aspect than simply suggesting the younger generation of employees cluster into groups of likeminded people but it also doesn’t not encourage thoughts of openness/porous/shifting teams.

What I do like is it embraces the communal aspect of being comfortable in ‘tribes’ within a larger organization <organizations are made up of a number of tribes>. Not unlike the Iroquois nation there are various tribes co-existing under a common charter. Each with separate cultural nuances and rituals but clearly aligned on a bigger purpose.

I began there because today’s leader grew up under the ‘dog eat dog’, ‘big fish eat little fish’ and ‘kill or be killed’ every person for themselves organizational upward movement mentality.

Remember I shared these Toffler words earlier in the post:

“Big companies will break up into confederations of small, entrepreneurial units. Small interacting firms will form themselves into temporary mosaics to be more adaptive and productive.”

I would note Toffler didn’t recognize the cultural shift <more of a community/tribal character> but rather focused solely on the power shift <knowledge wealth>. That said. As the two connect <a cultural shift and a business power shift> the words he shared become even more powerful … and meaningful to a new inside out leader.

These smaller units are tribes within an organization <call them a ‘small team’ if you dislike tribe>.

Each with its own ‘power’ to be managed by a leader savvy enough to move pieces seamlessly and have the ability to empower disparate thoughts, and tribes, into an aligned organization. The new inside out leader will need to recognize the balance between managing individuals and managing teams <with tribal cultures>. Neither a one-size-fit –all mentality or a one-by-one management mentality will work and be successful. It will be about empowering tribe without having tribal war and permitting the natural team leaders to arise from the culture.

Second.

Fragmented knowledge <individualized empowerment through knowledge> A truth. Knowledge is the most democratic source of power. The truly revolutionary aspect of knowledge wealth, and the internet, is that it can be grasped by weak & poor as well as strong & wealthy which makes it a continuing threat to the powerful, even as they try and use it to enhance their own power.

Toffler said this:

Bureaucracy is also a ways of groupings “facts”. A firm neatly cut into department according to function, market, region, or products is after all a collection of cubbyholes in which specialized information and personal experience are stored. The vaunted “rationality” of bureaucracy goes out the window. Power, always a factor, now replaces reason as the basis for decision. The power structure based on control of information was clear, therefore: While specialists controlled the cubbyholes, managers controlled the channels.”

Reading this also explains why every leader in a hierarchy is tempted <if not actually desirable of> to control the quantity, quality, and distribution of knowledge within his or her domain.

The internet has created a power shift by taking it from solely under those with legal or formal position and towards those with the ability to absorb & use knowledge.

It became a command/control leader’s headache that knowledge could slink into any office space and anyone smart enough to use it could become smarter than the person they reported to. It is easy to see that this organization fragmentation driven by real/actual knowledge could easily become chaos unless leaders begin showcasing a different ability than maybe we have valued up until today.

This means today’s leaders need to be assimilators of fragments.

They need to encourage empowered individuals and tribes to accumulate knowledge and then redirecting or gathering disparate pieces of knowledge into new forms in which the organizations, and ultimately, the tribes benefit from. The control of knowledge is the crux of an organization’s struggle for power, and more importantly, effectiveness. It is also then a leader’s biggest challenge in tomorrow’s businesses.

Compounding the issue is that the hyper speed in today’s world is making facts obsolete faster.

Therefore knowledge built upon certain facts becomes less durable. This has 2 key impacts:

– truth is fleeting <and decision making has small windows of opportunity>

– business has become more abstract <as knowledge streams non stop into and within an organization>.

Which now leads me to discuss speed.

inside out leader:Discerning between desire for speed and need for speed

Economics is now all accelerated <even if it isn’t really … we incessantly talk about it as if it is>. And all this accelerated pressure <speed> also shifts power by putting stress, and inevitably undermining, the fixed, bureaucratic chain of command.

Now <taking a step back>.

While everyone talks about a faster world today I would like to point out business has always had a love affair with speed. I would like to remind everyone that the second phase of the industrial revolution was focused on breaking apart production processes <and behavior associated> into the smallest portions with the intent to isolate and shrinking time to the most efficient pace possible.

I point that out because we have always desired speed. But we do not necessarily NEED speed. Speed is not only an addictive objective but an elusive one … the more you get the more you want.

I believe the new inside out leader will learn how to slow organizations down. They will need to be able to discern the difference between desire and need.

I don’t mean make them slow … but rather simply slow them down.

There are a variety of ways to do so but I would suggest the best, and easiest, is to embed the core purpose or vision of the organization within each employee.

Organizations will slow to think, and assess, only to speed up even faster. Only leaders can empower organizations to do this.

In conclusion.

Therefore this will be a new kind of leader stressing the central importance of character and virtue in a culture … focusing everyone on the basics … decency, doing the right thing, cooperation and that actions always have long-term consequences and doing it all as possible.

This changes decision-making from “if it makes money it is good” to “how does this fit within our purpose/direction?” will inevitably lead to smarter decisions and sometimes even adapted decisions <on the ground> all meeting a common purpose. It slows down the organization to think slightly but less so over time as ‘right thing’ becomes more & more obvious organizationally.

Outside in kind of worked because it not only generated money/revenue but in general a happier consumer who felt important <who doesn’t like that?>. But it also worked because this knowledge power created a newer faster ‘responder’ organization which permitted leaders to be lazier. They could build careers based only on responding and not foresight & consistency and makes gobs of money.

But.

“If its profitable do it” mentality is not an effective business management style because it doesn’t breed the organizational cohesiveness to balance against the individual freedom.

Conversely, “If it feels good do it” mentality is not an effective business management style unless grounded in some character/virtue.

Inside out leadership organizations will encourage individuality and individual freedom in the business decision making because it will also encourage individuals grounded in a vision based on character, virtue & organizational integrity.